It's Time
by kromer
Summary: I don't own Avatar. Story about the explicit capture of the Avatar. Rate for violence. Please review. Based loosely on Jack London's "Call of the Wild" First few chapters, not so great, but it gets better! I promise!
1. Days One and Two

Listen up! My first two fanfics were, put simply, crap. But, dare I say it, NO MORE! I refuse from this story forward to write a single terribly OOC story that will cause poor reviews. To those few who put up with the originals: I thank you deeply for your sacrifice. Now, BEHOLD! I shall write a decent piece!

**It's Time**

For most of the evening, the only sound was that of Sokka snoring. Late in the night, however, Aang awoke to a loud cracking noise, and found himself face to face with the sneering face of Azula. He glanced around and saw at least a dozen Fire Nation soldiers. "Avatar, you've just been captured." She whispered in his ear.

"Really?" Aang said in a mock-curious voice. "'Cause I don't think so." He flung up his sleeping bag and assumed a fighting stance. He spun and flung out his arms, as if to airbend, but found he couldn't. In fact, he could barely move. Ty Lee released her grasp on the base of his neck and jabbed twice with two fingers into his spine. Aang fell face forward into the waiting shackles of the Fire Nation soldiers.

As Azula and her soldiers dragged him away, Aang reached down and pulled a small trinket from his shirt collar with his teeth and blew it across camp into Katara's tent. He stared sadly at the tent as he was pulled helplessly away from his lover. The last thing he heard before boarding the Fire Nation prison ship was a scream and a torrent of sobbing. A single tear rolled down his cheek.

**Day One**

Aang awoke in a small metal cell on board the Fire Nation ship, the previous night a blur. He remembered being captured by Azula, and put on board this ship. He also remembered tossing his air nomad trinket into Katara's tent. His eyes widened. He remembered the scream and the sobs, sobs for him.

His thoughts were interrupted by two Fire Nation soldiers, carrying two metal rods and a bucket of water. They entered his cell and set the items on the floor. One of them went back outside the cell and began turning a large wheel. Aang felt his arms being lifted off the ground, and realized he was chained to the wall.

He tried to move, but his entire body screamed in agony. He felt stabbing pains in his joints when he attempted to move, and then he saw them. He had to bite his tongue to keep from vomiting. Jabbed into his knees, shoulders, elbows, and ankles were grisly metal spikes. Blood and ragged flesh hung from the wounds and wound its way down his body towards the floor.

The Fire Nation soldier grinned. He picked up one of the metal rods and called his companion inside. The second soldier picked up the second rod. The first soldier snapped his fingers and created a white hot ball of fire. He held it under the tip of his metal rod until it glowed a devilish red. He stepped forward. Aang knew what was coming before it happened. He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. The pain didn't come instantly. First there was a tingling, then cold, and then no feeling at all, only the smell of burning meat. Then, all at once, the tremendous pain came to him, and Aang cried out. His eyes snapped open and he saw the Fire Nation soldier with his red hot metal rod pressed against the ragged flesh around one of the metal spikes in Aang's shoulder.

**Day Two**

If Aang had thought the burning rods had been painful, then the next day was excruciating. After hours of being beaten and burned through the night, he was forced awake early by the same two soldiers. They hauled him to his feet and took off the chains around his arms and legs.

They pushed him into a different room with small metal tables and a single counter. On the counter were two piles of rotting mush. Aang smelled them before he saw them, and immediately did what he had held back all through the night's torture. He suddenly and explosively vomited. The soldiers pushed him, face first, into the first pile of rotting mush, then into the second. "Breakfast." One of them grunted.

After 'breakfast', the soldiers pulled Aang through two more rooms into a third, circular room consisting of a pit covered by crisscrossing catwalks and several large vents and fans at the top of the room. One of the soldiers shoved him roughly over the edge of the pit, and Aang fell easily twenty feet into a pile of burning coals. A pickaxe slammed into the ground right next to his head, and he heard the soldier call, "Work time, you lazy airbending bastard!"

In only one hour, Aang was burned and bruised and covered in soot. He could barely move and flopped down on his back when the guards called break. As soon as Aang managed to close his eyes, the guards blew an enormous steam horn and called break over. Aang groaned and refused to rise. Before long, a handful of powerful magnets latched onto the spike in his joints. He roared with agony as he was hauled up and out of the pit by the spikes in his ankles.

He was pulled out of the pit and immediately smacked across the face with a shovel. He spat blood on the floor and was kicked in the spike in his knee. He heard a sickening crack and went down on his 'good' knee. He was hauled up by a spike in his shoulder and beaten severely with a smoldering piece of wood with red hot nails in it.

After 'dinner' Aang was escorted back to his cell and tortured again, this time by sharpened and cracked pieces of frozen acids, that left shards and splinters that melted in his wounds and burned the exposed flesh. All through these torture sessions, he survived by telling himself one thing. He told himself Katara and Sokka would come to his aid soon. For now, however, all he could do was take his beatings obediently and get what little rest he could, for he would need it soon.


	2. Day Three

I should thank ya'll for puttin' up with the first two day installment. I wrote it late on a school night. I promise the next few chapters (days 3-6) will be better. Here ya' go!

**Day Three**

Aang didn't sleep the previous night. The soldiers' last words had him worried. After they beat him with frozen acidic blocks, the first soldier had said, "Sleep tight, mongrel. You ain't seen nothin' till you seen the princess's plans for you. If you thought these last two days was rough, just wait till tomorrow." Aang had gulped and shivered.

The soldier entered his cell with a spool of wire and another spike, like the ones in Aang's joints. "Mornin' sunshine." He said. He walked over to Aang and set the spike down. He uncoiled a few inches of the wire in his hand and heated it with firebending. "This'll hurt…a lot." The soldier grinned. With his free hand he held Aang's left eye open while he inserted the superheated wire into his tear duct. Aang screamed. The soldier grinned an evil grin.

After repeating the bloody and painful process with Aang's right eye, the soldier knelt down and discarded the wire. He picked up the spike and heated it. "You won't be usin' this parta ya here." He leveled the spike with Aang's groin, just above his testicles, and pulled back his shoulder. Aang screamed and shouted for the soldier to stop, but he just drew the spike back further. In a single horrifying instant, the soldier brought his arm forward with surprising speed and _jammed_ it into Aang's groin. Aang began to hyperventilate as the soldier heated and twisted the spike, and screamed when he pushed it in deeper. He felt the spike scrape his pelvis.

Through the entire torture session, Aang stayed awake, but when the soldier began putting lemon juice and salt in the wounds, he passed out. He didn't want to wake up, knowing what would happen if he did, but eventually he was shaken awake by a soldier with a mallet. "Chi blockin' time, ya useless bitch." He went around to each spike in turn, pounding it deeper into the bone. Aang grimaced and grunted in pain, but grinned when the soldier left. He now knew something that would help him escape, but for now he needed rest.


	3. Day Four

Thank you to everyone who has ever read or reviewed my work. I promise chapter three and after will be better. Enjoy!

**Day Four**

Aang awoke to a searing pain in the side of his neck, and instinctively tried to jerk his head away from it. On the other side of his head, however, was a piece of jagged rusty metal. It went through his cheek and scraped his teeth. He screamed and pulled away, into the searing pain, making it worse. He looked down and saw a dart jabbed into his neck. In about thirty seconds he lost all muscle control and could only stare hopelessly at the blood as it trickled from his wounds, and grimace inwardly when the Fire Nation soldier took up a cat o' nine tails and proceeded to beat him.

After being pushed first into the rotting pile of banana skins and egg shells, and then into the work pit, Aang began to scheme. He knew Sokka and Katara would be following the ship on Appa, planning a way to rescue him. He also new it was Azula who constructed new tortures just for him. He learned from idol chatter between soldiers that it was Ty Lee's idea to put spikes in Aang's pressure points to cut of his chi. He would have to wait until day six to confirm a suspicion, then he could plan his escape.

In the usual fashion, Aang was hauled out of the pit brutally and beaten savagely before being dragged back into his cell, where he was beaten again. By now his muscles began to grow hard, and his skin resistant to the constant heat aboard the ship. Around noon, a prisoner was escorted to the middle of the work pit, and all the others, including Aang, were escorted to the edges. In the middle of the pit, covered from top to bottom in thick, greasy liquid, were the gallows. Aang watched as the prisoner was hung by a rope also covered in the liquid, and set on fire. While the prisoner died and screamed, the others were either pushed or jumped over the edge and began tearing at his body. Aang watched in horror as the still squirming body of the prisoner disappeared piece by piece down the throats of the others. He vomited.

Aang had the learned the hard way that brawls in the work pit were to the death, when a prisoner, driven mad by hunger, had swung a shovel at his neck. Aang had barely been quick enough to bring up his own pick and deflect the blow. The prisoner kept coming as Aang stumbled backward, trying desperately to keep his footing. He swung his pick down in a last ditch effort as the shovel came screaming toward his throat again, and he shattered the other prisoner's ankle. He went down on a knee and tried to defend himself as the other prisoners converged on him, ripping him limb from limb and devouring him in greedy munching gulps. Aang struggled to keep what little was in his stomach.

The beatings for the night were savage and severe. The soldier had told him the consequence for killing another prisoner was to have the right eye pried out and forcefully fed to its previous owner, but that the princess had requested a different fate. He told Aang she would come to him the next day with a proposition, and refusal would receive a dire punishment. "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned." The soldier chuckled as he licked the cat o' nine tails across Aang's chest one last time and left. Aang, for the first time in days, fell asleep.


	4. Day Five

As promised, the grisly day five of prison!

**Day Five**

Aang awoke to the sound of a familiar voice. It was cold and carried an ever present hint of sarcasm. The voice of Azula. "Wake up, Avatar. Time to negotiate." He opened his eyes. "Bout time, sleepy head." She wasn't angry at all. In fact, she seemed calm. She stood in the doorway to his cell, flanked by Fire Nation soldiers, with her hands on her hips. She walked toward him and placed a hand on his shoulder, or rather the spike in his shoulder. He cringed. "I'm going to make a deal with you, Avatar." She twisted the spike. He grunted. "You tell me where you're friends and allies are hiding, what your plans are, and the easiest way to counter them. Tell me these things, and you'll live to see daylight on land. He grunted again and spat in her face.

Azula stepped back. "Never," was all Aang managed to say before the nine pointed lashes of the cat o' nine tails licked across his face and shoulders. He squeezed his eyes shut and endured the beating, until his face was scarred and covered in cuts and blood. He breathed heavy gasps of air when it was done, and passed out when the soldiers left.

This day in the work pit, Aang watched a prisoner have hot coals inserted into his eyes and nose before being shoved into a furnace. His hands were shaking. He began to think about his escape to keep his mind off the horrid prison. "Okay," he thought," if I'm right, then the soldiers pound the spikes deeper every three days to block off chi. If I can keep the spikes out for three days, I just may be able to bend my way out." He though as he worked, not daring to stop for fear of being beaten. It was no use. He was hauled out of the pit and was crushed under the foot of a soldier. He heard his ribs break. All at once, an unfamiliar surge came over him. It wasn't anything like chi, he still couldn't bend, but he had strength like nothing he'd ever felt before. He swept the soldier off his feet and tipped him over the edge of the pit, falling into the bed of coals on top of him. Aang proceeded to pound the soldier's head into the coals with punch after punch. He grabbed a handful of coals and shoved them into the soldier's mouth as he coughed and inhaled deeply for air. Red hot embers entered his lungs and he screamed as the red hot coals burned through his mouth and throat. He was dead before long, and Aang was hit with a shovel.

That night in his cell, Aang screamed as a horrible new torture was imposed upon him. He was partially castrated with a meat grinder, and the wound was cauterized with a red hot knife. The ground portion of his body was set on fire before him, and dropped to the ground between his feet. No tears fell from his eyes, as his tear ducts had been seared shut by a soldier a few days ago. He heaved heavy, dry sobs till he fell asleep.

His only dreams were of Katara. Katara this, Katara that. He loved her and she knew it. He had no doubt she was on her way to rescue him. Until then, he had to stay alive. He couldn't let her find his mutilated, lifeless body. He promised, as much to assure himself as her, that he would survive.


	5. Day Six END

Howdy! Sorry 'bout not writing more into this story, I was busy all during my school year. Here it is! Day six.

**Day Six**

Aang was awakened by the soldier with the mallet again. Part of his plan to escape became true. "Welcome to the closest thing you'll see to Hell for a while, avatar." He proceeded to pound the spikes into Aang's joints. Aang tensed his muscles tightly through the whole process, and when it was done he relaxed.

Much to his surprise, the spikes slid out about a quarter of an inch when he relaxed. He tensed and relaxed his muscles several times, each one pushing the spikes a little further out. After an hour of this, he attempted to bend some of the sweat off his forehead. He grinned when it came off his head and twirled in neat little circles. He could bend again.

Two guards came and unshackled Aang, then went about the daily routine of shoving him into the pile of rotten mush and tipping him into the work pit. He spent some time trying to bend the coal, and when he was satisfied that he could, he worked. He managed to scrape some of the substance off of the gallows and hide it behind his ears and under his arms while nobody was looking. When he was pulled from the pit and placed firmly on the ground, he slicked the substance from its hiding places and used it as a whip. He cut one guard's throat and threw the rest into another's face.

At that moment in time, Aang realized what he'd done left him two choices: escape today or die tomorrow. He chose escape, and ran like hell. Before long, he was tripped and beaten. Two Fire Nation soldiers wielding clubs pounded him into a pulp, screaming curses all the while. "Fucking bender-bitch! I'll show you to assault a guard you little boy-whore! When we get done torturing you tonight, you won't be able to have children, much less move from the neck down!"

They almost lived up to their promise. Aang was again chained to a wall and they beat him again with metal rods. One of the guards pulled a knife and slammed it into Aang's hand, pinning it to the wall. He screamed in agony. When the guard turned his back, Aang used the hand that wasn't pinned to the wall to bend the sweat and blood from his body, creating a two foot long spike. He thrust it forward with as much power as he could manage. It went through the first guard and into the other. Both died instantly.

Aang smirked and used the spike to cut his chains. He gripped the end of the knife with his good hand and pulled. "ARGHHH! AHHH!" he screamed as the jagged piece of metal tore away more of his hand as he pulled it out. Once free, he stumbled. He became very dizzy from loss of blood, but knew he had to reach the surface.

After nearly an hour of grueling searching, he found his way out onto the deck of the ship. There were no guards up here that he could see, so he ran to the center of the deck and began to scan the sky. It didn't take long to spot Appa. He waved wildly, spraying his blood over the deck. Obviously they saw him, because he saw the bison dip and turn in his direction. Appa landed with a loud thump on the deck 

not far from Aang. Katara jumped off and rushed to Aang. She hugged him tightly, ignoring his bloody, naked body.

"Aang, I was so scared." She sobbed. Aang saw his Air Nomad trinket around her neck and smiled.

"I see you got my message." He pulled it up from her neck and examined it like he'd never seen it before. "Thank you." He leaned in a kissed her.

Their affection was brief, however, as Ty Lee jabbed her fingers into both of their backs, and they both fell motionless. Azula walked coldly up to Katara and grabbed her by her hair. "Well, well. What have we here? The avatar was trying to escape? Never. Seeing as you've been so…persistent in your denial to my demands, we'll just see if you'll talk over another's spilt blood. She seems to be the best candidate." She pulled the pin from her hair and held it to Katara's neck.

"No!" It was all Aang could manage to say under Ty Lee's paralyzing effects.

Azula grinned. "Fine, to the prisoners then. You!" she spoke to one of her guards," take them all to the gallows in the coal pit. The prisoners will eat well tonight." Aang vomited.

**Part Two**

Aang found himself, Katara, Sokka, and Toph suspended in the oily ropes of the gallows in the coal pit. Around him, prisoners cheered like madmen at the promise of a meal, no matter how gruesome. A guard came near with a torch. "Start with the Water Tribe girl, then her brother, then the earthbender, and finish with the Avatar." Azula stood on the rim of the coal pit, out of the way of the carnage.

The torch inched closer to Katara's neck, until, finally, the oil on the rope ignited. Katara screamed. Aang squeezed his eyes shut, unable to cry. When he opened them again, only seconds later, they glowed bright blue. He snapped the bindings behind his back and rose into the air. He bent the oil from all the ropes, including the flaming stuff around Katara's neck, and flung it at Azula. Then he bent the coal in the pit into a large sphere around the four of them. They rose through the air, crashing through the giant fan at the top.

Once up top, Aang bent the metal of the ship, throwing the guards overboard. Appa groaned as Aang set the sphere of coal into his saddle. He let the coal fall away, and exited the Avatar State. He ran to Appa's head. "Yip Yip!" he commanded. Then he ran immediately to Katara. "Katara! Are you ok? Wake up!" a single bloody tear managed its way out of his cauterized tear ducts. She stirred lightly under his touch, showing him the burn ring around her neck. He sobbed.

"A…Aang?" Aang snapped up. "Aang, I'm alright. Are you ok?" her voice was faint and her eyes were barely open.

"Yea," he lied, "I'm alright." Only seconds later, he collapse beside her. Katara healed her own burn, then set to work healing as many of Aang's wounds as she could. When she was done, she laid a blanket over his beaten, nude form. For now, it was over. They needed to rest, even though Azula would be one 

step behind them at every turn, ready to burn them all to the ground. Katara bent and kissed Aang on the forehead. She settle herself beside him, facing him, and put her hand on the side of his head. He grinned in his sleep and moved a little closer to her. He'd kept his promise. He'd survived.


End file.
